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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
(Fwd) A dirty bomb or dirty trick?
The Republic becoming an Empire
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 14:39:27 -0400
Subject: (Fwd) A dirty bomb or dirty trick?
Recently I watched the trailer for the movie Minority Report with
Tom Cruise, due to open on June 21. It is about a society, the U.S.
society, to be more precise, in the near perfect, albeit somewhat
Orwellian future, where people are arrested not for crimes that they
have already committed, but rather for crimes that they were to
commit in the future. It seems, though, that the movie release is a
little bit late: the Aschcroftian reality of the U.S. society today pre-
empted its message. I am actually thinking of translating some of
the old Yugoslav books about "homeland security" (Opstenarodna
Obrana i Drustvena Samozastita) from the communist period: I find
them very fitting in the new America.
ivo
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from: Daniel Tomasevich <danilo@MARTNET.COM>
subject: A dirty bomb or dirty trick?
to: JUSTWATCH-L@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU
Just when the heat gets turned up on the CIA, FBI there is finger
pointing elsewhere.
Some might claim the venue was oddly apt, though. With his fierce
prosecutorial zeal and taste for scary hyperbole, Mr Ashcroft calls to
mind Andrei Vyshinsky, the infamous prosecutor at Stalin's show
trials, whose prime contribution to 20th-century legal doctrine was
the "presumption of guilt" against those unfortunate enough to be in
his sights.
Daniel
(article not for cross posting)
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Independent 16 June 2002
Home > News > World > Americas
A dirty bomb from Pakistan? Or a dirty trick from Washington?
Just as the heat was building on the CIA and FBI over failures of
intelligence-gathering, up popped a brand new suspect.
Rupert Cornwell smells a rat
It sure sent a jolt through the United States. Yet last week's much
ballyhooed arrest of the "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla now seems,
like other developments in the "war against terror", to have been a
political device of the Bush administration - designed to distract
attention from US intelligence failures and solidify support behind
President Bush.
For who, exactly, is Mr Padilla, aka Abdullah al-Muhajir? Is he a
highly trained al-Qa'ida operative who was about to explode a
radioactive "dirty" bomb in Washington DC, as the US attorney general,
John Ashcroft, would have us believe? Or a Chicago street punk of no
great danger to anyone?
With each passing day, the latter looks more likely. No plot and no
accomplices have been discovered, despite Mr Padilla having been in
detention for more than a month before his existence was revealed to
the nation, which duly panicked.
As the New York Times said on Thursday, quoting some of those unnamed
"US officials" who abound in the nation's press, he was "an unlikely
terrorist, a low-level gang member with no technical knowledge of
nuclear materials who was arrested long before he represented a
significant terrorist threat".
And why, if it was as important as Mr Ashcroft claimed, was his arrest
kept secret for five weeks - only for the attorney general to reveal
it while in Moscow of all places?
Some might claim the venue was oddly apt, though. With his fierce
prosecutorial zeal and taste for scary hyperbole, Mr Ashcroft calls to
mind Andrei Vyshinsky, the infamous prosecutor at Stalin's show
trials, whose prime contribution to 20th-century legal doctrine was
the "presumption of guilt" against those unfortunate enough to be in
his sights.
For "enemy of the people" read "enemy combatant", as Mr Padilla, a US
citizen, has now been designated. He sits in a naval prison in South
Carolina, presumed guilty but not charged with any criminal offence.
Indeed, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, has acknowledged that
he may never be charged. Mr Padilla's lawyers responded to that
statement with a petition to the courts, saying their client's
detention without time limit or the right to counsel should be "a
constitutional concern to everyone".
No one would dispute the US's right to defend itself against
terrorists, nor that this shadowy struggle, "asymmetric" in the jargon
of conflict experts, demands exceptional, equally shadowy means. But
Mr Padilla's fate is currently shared by hundreds of non-Americans,
mostly Arab individuals, swept up in dragnets in the days and weeks
following 11 September, and nine months later still in detention on
the most minor of charges. The only difference is, no one knows their
names.
One thinks also of Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot whose one stroke of
good luck was to be arrested in Britain, not the US. He was picked up
at his home near Heathrow airport on 21 September 2001, and Mr
Ashcroft's Justice Department instantly demanded his extradition on
the grounds that he had trained some of the 11 September hijackers.
But not a shred of evidence was ever forthcoming from Washington,
beyond the fact that Mr Raissi was an Arab and had trained at an
Arizona flight school at roughly the same time as Hani Hanjour, one of
the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the
Pentagon. In February he was released on bail, and in April his case
was thrown out entirely. Had he been in the US, however, he would
undoubtedly still be rotting quietly in jail.
But the fanfare around Mr Padilla served Mr Bush's purposes perfectly.
Forgotten were the host of clues missed by the FBI and the CIA before
11 September. The US was on full nuclear terror alert, ready once more
to take the President's word for anything and to support his plans for
a new super-ministry for domestic security.
Recent "revelations" about Khalid Almidhar, another of the AA77
hijackers, are equally instructive, albeit for different reasons. More
unnamed officials told Newsweek magazine that Almidhar was spotted by
the CIA at a meeting of al-Qa'ida operatives in Malaysia in January
2000. But the CIA, it seemed, failed to alert other agencies,
including the immigration services who might have picked him up on
entry into the US.
But wait. A few days later, other intelligence sources disclosed, this
time to the Washington Post, that the CIA had in fact told the FBI. By
now an alert reader will have divined that the disclosures have less
to do with the fight against terrorism than with the equally
entrenched fight between the FBI and the CIA. And as armistice breaks
out between them, in reaction to their having had their heads banged
together by the Bush administration, blame is being shifted beyond US
shores.
Take Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the al-Qa'ida operative whom other
anonymous counter-terrorism officials named early this month as a
prime organiser of the 11 September attacks. Those officials claimed
he was in Germany before the attacks, liaising with Mohamed Atta, who
flew the jet into the north tower of the World Trade Centre.
The only problem is, the Germans know nothing about it - and when they
ask Washington for further information, none is forthcoming. But that
is a secondary consideration. The finger now points to Berlin, not
Langley, where the CIA is based, or FBI headquarters in Washington.
Increasingly, for the two secretive agencies engaged in the US's "war
on terror", anything goes.
If the face fits...
Lotfi Raissi
Arrested: 21 September 2001.
Problem: Global coalition in doubt. Polls show America blames FBI and
CIA for not stopping al-Qa'ida.
Solution: Arrests all over world, including this Algerian in England.
Terrorism charges dropped after five months in prison.
Khalid Almidhar
Revealed: 4 June 2002.
Problem: Washington hearings begin, asking who knew what.
Solution: Press tipped off that CIA passed name and passport number of
this future hijacker to FBI by email in January 2000.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Reward offered: 5 June 2002.
Problem: Global condemnation of decision to photograph and fingerprint
visitors from high-risk countries in Middle East.
Solution: FBI offers £18m reward for capture of this
37-year-old Kuwaiti, mastermind of 11 September attacks.
Abdullah al-Muhajir
"Arrested": 10 June 2002
Problem: Derision for new Department of Homeland Security. Unease
about treatment of Arabs grows.
Solution: Arrest of this "dirty bomber" announced. But in reality he
had been in custody for a month already.
______________________________________________________________________
© 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 11:27:37 -0400
Subject: The Republic becoming an Empire
When Roman Republic became an Empire it lost its power to
inspire its own citizens as well as surrounding 'barbarians' in ways
of law it introduced to the world's history. More and more the U.S,
administration is going the same way, trying to establish America
as a peerless military power, a formiddable force that no one can
stop. This creates suspicion and resentiment among allies and
malice and hate among enemies. It puts the U.S. society on
constant alert: the media are delivering daily scare stories ("dirty
bomb" being the latest among them), various governmental
departments are bracing themselves for fight against the external
and internal enemies, that grow in size and shape exponentially,
as they did in Stalin's Russia, people are arrested without due
process, detained without a valid reason and persecuted for their
political statements, all in the name of national security. The
economy is also paying the price for this Republic becoming the
Empire. Since George Bush entered his illustrious office, DOW,
NASDAQ and S&P indexes are going South, pretty fast and
seemingly unstoppable. And with the Empire being in the constant
preparation for war, the only companies that are recording
substantial gains, are the defense contractors - just check out their
stock: RTN, GD, LMT, NOC. This does not bode well for the life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness in the U.S. as well as anywhere
else on this planet.
ivo
http://www.dailyillini.com/jun02/jun17/news/stories/news_story01.sh
tml
Bensouda called 'security threat'
Leslie Hague
Managing editor
Former University student Ahmed Bensouda is being detained by the
Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services as a "national
security threat," according to friends who held a press conference Friday
morning.
Graduate student Aaron Love, a friend of Bensouda's, told about 30 people
gathered at the Champaign County Correctional Center that a bond hearing
last Wednesday had been delayed until June 21. The hearing Wednesday was
Bensouda's first.
Love said the trial included "secret evidence" against Bensouda that
neither he nor his lawyer had access to, because he is considered a
"national security threat" as determined by the judge. At the hearing
Wednesday, the press and public were cleared from the courtroom because of
this, and the hearing was unrecorded, Love said.
The INS office in Chicago deferred questions Friday to the U.S.
Department of Justice. Justice Department representatives did not return
calls Friday.
Outside the center Friday, friends of Bensouda held signs that read,
"Wake up America! The police state is here!" and "Due process has
disappeared!"
Friends of Bensouda confirmed Friday that he had dropped out of the
University in fall 2000, making his student visa invalid. Until Friday, the
group had maintained that Bensouda graduated from the University this May.
"Like many young people do, I decided to take some time off from school
because my heart wasn't in it," said Bensouda in a statement read by Love.
"The question remains: was my only big mistake being an Arab/Muslim on an
outdated visa? Not according to the way the authorities have been
operating," Bensouda's statement continued. "My case has been designated a
'special case,' i.e. one related to national security."
Although the group acknowledged that Bensouda was in violation of visa
regulations, the group protested what they said was a criminal
investigation and treatment for a civil violation.
"The punishment process that followed was way out of line," said Michael
Feltes, who spoke at the press conference.
Bensouda was arrested at his Urbana home on May 30. His first hearing was
last Wednesday. According to the Patriot Act of 2001, non-citizens can be
detained for up to six months without being charged.
Bensouda's friends maintained that since he had no criminal record, the
only evidence that could be brought against him is that of his political
involvement on campus, specifically his work toward American divestment in
Israel and Palestinian independence.
The rally was interrupted briefly when a man who said he had to make a
statement began yelling that people who aren't citizens shouldn't have the
same rights as citizens.
"If you don't like what you're standing on, get out," he yelled before
walking away.
Many of the protesters stressed that they believed Bensouda's problems
could happen to others.
"When can we start calling this fascism?" said David Green of Champaign.
"Obviously, a line has been crossed here. We should all be concerned about
Ahmed because it could happen to any of us."
--
URL: http://www.theglobalist.com/nor/richter/2002/06-19-02.shtml
Copyright (c) 2002 by TransAtlantic Futures, Inc.
Is the idea of "Imperial America" an inspiring vision or a historically
outdated world view?
In recent months, leading analysts in the United States have begun making
comparisons between the United States and the Roman empire. On the right,
conservatives like Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal editorial page have
openly called for "benign" American imperialism.
Pax Americana?
Meanwhile, on the center-left, some "humanitarian hawks" are as eager as
many conservatives to use U.S. military force in wars to pre-empt threats
and topple hostile regimes.
In the past, parallels between Imperial Rome and Imperial America
were primarily drawn by leftists or right-wing isolationists.
They thought that U.S. power politics corrupted the world, the American
republic -- or both. What is new since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 is the
embrace of U.S. imperialism by many mainstream voices as something
desirable and defensible.
An American monopoly of force?
In a speech at West Point on June 2, President Bush laid out a vision of a
future in which the United States more or less monopolizes global military
power -- indefinitely. The President declared, "America has, and intends
to keep, military strengths beyond challenge -- thereby making the
destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless -- and limiting rivalries
to trade and other pursuits of peace."
Tod Lindberg, a columnist for the conservative Washington Times, elaborates
upon this assertion: "What Mr. Bush is saying here is that the United
States will never allow a 'peer competitor' (in the international relations
lingo) to arise. We will never again be in a position of 'superpower
rivalry,' let alone a a cog in a multilateral balance of power."
The "Bush Doctrine"?
Lindberg, who approves of Mr. Bush's grandiose vision, acknowledges that it
"is sobering if not chilling in its implications." Of course, this is
particularly true for all of the other nations of the world, which, it
seems, will be knocked down if they rise above the humble station to which
Washington's strategists have assigned them.
This "Bush Doctrine" is really the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the former dean of the School of Advanced
International Studies at John Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. and
the brains behind Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld, was the major influence on
defense policy guidelines that the administration of the elder Bush drew up
in 1992. But at least a decade ago, the Wolfowitzian grand strategy had the
rather innocent name of "reassurance."
Policing the global backyard
Evidentally, by filling all power vacuums everywhere with U.S. military
power, the United States would "reassure" potential "peer competitors"
(Europe, Russia, China, Japan, India) that they did not need to build up
their militaries -- or pursue independent foreign policies. Under that same
logic, the United States would look after their security interests, in
their own regions -- presumably so that they could specialize as purely
commercial powers.
As President Bush said in his June 2 speech, other leading countries should
be "limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace" -- while
leaving the world policing to the American empire.
As it stands, the Wolfowitzian imperialists -- in the name of "reassurance"
in 1992 and "empire" in 2002 -- want to reduce all of the other major
powers in the role to the status of West Germany and Japan during the Cold
War. Like Japan and the former West Germany, today's EU, Russia, China and
India will be discouraged from arming, or rearming.
Peer competitors
After all, that might make them "peer competitors" of the United States
rather than protectorates. To the extent that America's allies are
permitted to have armed forces, they should defer to U.S. strategic
leadership, as Britain -- to a greater extent than other allies -- has
traditionally done.
If the gap between U.S. power and that of other major countries were as
enormous as the gap between the U.S. and its neighbors in North America and
the Caribbean, then the Bush Administration's Imperial America strategy
might make sense. But the United States lacks the economic, military and --
most important -- the political power to dominate the world, as an
alternative to leading it.
American dream -- or American fantasy?
Even at an impressive 20 percent of global GDP, the United States is still
far less important today than it was in 1945, when it accounted for half of
the industrial production in a war-devastated world.
The EU has a larger, though less dynamic, economy than the United States.
And long-term growth in Asia and elsewhere will inevitably diminish
America's relative weight in the world economy.
The computer revolution of the late 20th century provided the United States
with a temporary lead in technology. But that lead will erode over time, as
rising powers master made-in-America technology.
This will happen in just the same way that Germany and the United States --
industrializing in the late 19th century -- caught up with Britain, the
laboratory of the industrial revolution.
Power of the few?
And while the U.S. population will still grow moderately for some time,
that growth is chiefly the result of a politically-contested immigration
policy. Even with the immigrant influx, the United States will shrink in
relative terms from four percent to only two percent or one percent of a
world population that may rise to 9 or 10 billion before stabilizing. One
percent of humanity might be able to lead the other ninety-nine percent now
and then. But it cannot rule them.
The United States may have the world's most powerful military, but U.S.
military power should not be exaggerated.
Yes, America spends more on the military than most other great powers
combined. But it costs far more for the United States -- an island nation
-- to project power across the oceans and skies than it does for Eurasian
countries to transport their own forces within or near their own borders.
Russia, China and India may not be as strong as the United States -- but
they do not need to be. The United States would have a hard time fighting
them on their own soil or in their own regions.
Policy shift
The greatest flaw of the Wolfowitzian imperialists is the way they treat
diplomacy as an obstacle to U.S. power -- rather than as a critical
component. Without allies in Europe, the Middle East, Asia -- and elsewhere
-- who provide bases and overflight rights, the United States would be a
regional North American power which at most could bomb hostile countries
from the air or sea.
An isolated America would be unable to launch ground invasions or sustained
military occupations. Even in derelict regions like Afghanistan, the U.S.
military can be used effectively only in joint efforts with America's
allies -- some of which, like Britain, France and Russia (America's newest
ally) are still great powers, although not superpowers, in their own right.
The Bush-Wolfowitz blueprint for an Imperial America, then, is based on two
grave fallacies: First, a gross exaggeration of America's actual economic
and military power. And second, a dangerous devaluation of diplomacy as an
instrument of American statecraft. As Talleyrand said about Napoleon's
execution of the Duc D'Enghien : "It is worse than a crime; it is a
mistake."
Wednesday, June 19, 2002
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